Updated 11:47 am, Friday, September 11, 2015

Top Texas Republicans wary of Obama plan to take in 10,000 Syrian refugees

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President Barack Obama's plan to accept 10,000 refugees from Syria is not going down well with a few prominent Texas Republicans in Congress, despite pressure in both the U.S. and Europe to develop a more humanitarian response to the crisis in the Middle East and Eastern Europe.Obama made the announcement after officials in the European Union said they would take in as many as 160,000 refugees across two dozen E.U. nations.The new U.S. commitment would quadruple the 1,600 Syrian refugees who have arrived since the civil war in Syria began in 2011, according to the State Department.But Homeland Security Committee Chairman Michael McCaul, an Austin Republican, issued a statement following the White House announcement saying the influx could present a security risk."The President wants to surge thousands of Syrian refugees into the United States, in spite of consistent intelligence community and federal law enforcement warnings that we do not have the intelligence needed to vet individuals from the conflict zone," McCaul said. "We also know that ISIS wants to use refugee routes as cover to sneak operatives into the West."McCaul and other Republicans have called on the administration to bring a plan to Congress before taking in massive numbers of additional refugees, which are currently capped at 70,000 under U.S law.Also weighing in was Texas U.S. Sen. John Cornyn, the Number 2 Republican in the Senate, who called for the administration to address the problem at its source."The refugee crisis really has its roots in the flawed foreign policy of the administration," Cornyn told Texas reporters Thursday. He pointed to political voids that have been left to fester in Libya, Iraq and Syria, where ISIS has taken hold with no definite U.S. plan of action."I know people are concerned, and I share that concern about the refugees," Cornyn said. "But America can't endlessly absorb, not can Europe or anywhere else, the refugees that come from these failed states in the Middle East and elsewhere. What we need to look at is the root cause, and that is we need to change our policies... The United States needs to be more involved stabilizing those regions so people can stay home rather than looking for a home here in the United States or in Europe."While some lawmakers are raising alarms, immigrant advocates are calling for a bigger U.S. commitment, with some suggesting raising the immigrant cap to as high as 200,000.Meanwhile, administration officials have said the plan to take in more Syrian refugees will maintain current protocols for vetting foreigners travelling to the United States.